If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Baghdad may have been bad but the worst I ever encountered was at Da Nang. I had lived on Guam and the Philippine Islands prior but the skeeters at Da Nang were the worst. No matter how slathered up with Deet you were, you'd always get bitten. Coming in the the morning (I always worked all night) we would first spray under our mosquito nets to kill what had gotten in prior to us getting under them and catching some shut eye.

Out here on the left coast we have lot of mosquito's in the Redwoods and a bug net is a must.

I'm with you cooldays. I camp in the exact same area that you do. My go-to hammock used to be permethrin treated until I got sketched out by the possible health effects of that stuff. I never got around to making a bugnet to fit a gathered-end hammock, so this season I've gone without and haven't really missed it. The mosquitoes in the mountains are very polite... they don't bite through the hammock and whatever quilt or sheet I'm using is protection enough. Once in a while I get a few mossies around my face. Usually I just throw my extra shirt over my face, which works fine if it's not too stinky. I may eventually make a small head-area net that hangs off the ridgeline, but that's about all I think I need in our little corner of paradise.

.. truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. - Herman Melville

GNATS, I hate the little beasties! So, sometimes I have got to get away from them, if just for an hour or two during the day. & sleeping in my back yard, the skeeters are active all night. I don't mind the bites (Gnats or skeeters) so much, its when they buzz into (yes INTO) my ears & eyes.

So for me, the netting is vital to my well being while hiking.

When you have a backpack on, no matter where you are, you’re home.
PAIN is INEVITABLE. MISERY is OPTIONAL.

I hate the eye gnats too. I've used a headnet for them before, but that can be annoying and hot. I've noticed from doing trail maintenance that when I wear safety glasses, no gnats. It seems like any glasses that fit relatively close to your face will keep them out... they don't have to be goggles that actually seal against your skin.

.. truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. - Herman Melville

I'm way under par as far as camping goes this summer, but the last time I went in the Finger Lakes a few weeks ago the 'skeeters were buzzing and hitting my bugnet (just flying or trying to get at me? I dunno). Really depends where you go and when, but it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.